Electrical interconnections between railway vehicles may be used for numerous purposes which include voice intercom, rapid air brake application and release, power for electric lighting, control of remote locomotives, diagnostics such as information regarding hotboxes and other purposes. With the availability of modern microprocessors comes the possibility of enabling a microprocessor in a lead locomotive of a train to control the tractive power and braking of slave locomotives and communicate individually or collectively with all the cars in the train. A number of such purposes can be served with a small number of electrical connections because different functions can be accomplished by using different portions of the frequency spectrum. An example is a home intercom which sends an audio signal over the power lines of the house.
The following five United States patents relate to the art of making electrical connections between electric lines in adjacent railway cars.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,251,480, issued to K. L. DePenti et al on May 17, 1966. This patent provides a connector for automatic connection of fluid pressure conduits and electrical circuits. The connector is located underneath the coupler and joining of the connectors is intended to occur automatically as the cars are coupled. This system is inconsistent with the industry standard brake line fluid pressure connector.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,646,498, issued to R. T. Reed et al on Feb. 29, 1972. This is an electrical connector which is not associated with a fluid pressure connector. Electrical contacts are embedded in insulating blocks and are brought into electrical contact by pins activated when the connectors are joined.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,773,186, issued to W. H. Reno et al on Nov. 20, 1973. This patent has contacts in bores which are placed in electrical contact by fluid pressure.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,812,444, issued to W. H. Reno on May 21, 1974. This is a combined fluid pressure connector and electrical connector which is inconsistent with the industry standard brake line fluid pressure connector.
U.S Pat. No. 5,586,668, issued to Craig A. Miller. This patent is assigned to the assignee of the present invention. It provides an integrated air and electrical connector which is consistent with the industry standard brake air connector. In this invention, the electrical contacts are pressed against each other by resilient biasing members. The teachings of this patent are incorporated herein by reference thereto.